Grades

[nemoeller]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

[BlackSpinner]

It depends on your therapy effectiveness and how much damage there is to recover from.

go to your profile and fill in your equipment. We can help you fine tune it if we know what you are "driving".

A month is just long enough for your brain to start to begin to trust that it is safe to sleep deeply. The first month is often the shake down cruise to build new habits and ways of sleeping. It took me about 3 months before I realized I was understanding and remembering more easily and able to focus more clearly on problems that needed solving and not just writing code.

[LSAT]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

OK...you are 'on' CPAP...but are you using it all night? Do you have a comfortable mask that doesn't leak a lot? You can be 'on' CPAP and not get the proper therapy. Did you have a sleep study?

[StuUnderPressure]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

First: THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE !

I am sure everyone here will try their best to help you.

But, as BlackSpinner requested, if you fill in your profile with the equipment you are using, that help can be better tailored to you.

[Sir NoddinOff]

Not to sound like a broken record, but successful CPAP is usually a long term experiment involving lots of problem solving. You try something, maybe it fixes it, maybe not... check that attempt off the list and go down to the next possible solution. You'll hit a few smooth patches, some of them quite long, where things will be almost perfect - usually at some point however, a new problem will pop up and need attention. You may have heard of this cycle of struggle and problem solving before; it's called 'life'. Good luck with your therapy and may the wind be at your back (or in your throat, as the case may be). Oh, before I forget: Thank you for your devoted service to our country

[chunkyfrog]

May I begin with Welcome, and Thank you.
I am guessing that you are using the same study techniques now that you used before your injury.
If that is the case, then it may be appropriate to ask your caregivers to point you to resources with which
to get around your memory and concentration issues. (lets hope they will improve with time and treatment.)
People who learn with little or no effort as children often find, later in life, that learning requires more read-overs, more note-taking, and even diagram drawing--just to make the same 'dent in our mush'.
I started doing this when untreated apnea was cutting into my ability to learn.
I still am not 100%, but it is something to work with.

[49er]

[quote="nemoeller"]I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question? [/quote

Hi Nemoeller,

Since you have disabilities, have you asked about accommodations for college? You sound like you would certainly be eligible for them. And having them would make a big difference in your ability to get a good grade in a course. You would need documentation from an MD or psychologist (forgot other professionals) certifying your disability.

I don't have TBI but do have similar type issues even before I was ever diagnosed with apnea. I definitely understand the issue of working so hard and getting nothing to show for it.

Unfortunately, I never received accommodations when I was in undergraduate school. But I was able to get them for a graduate level course I took almost 12 years ago. I simply took my documentation and spoke to someone in the disabilities office who was very helpful in suggesting them.

Feel free to pm me if you want to talk further.

49er

PS - Chunky Frog's post reminded me to suggest that you ask someone in the Disabilities office help for ways to compensate for your difficulties.

[kaiasgram]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

Hi nemoeller, and may I also add my gratitude to the chorus of Thank Yous here for your service.

I think the two most promising areas that you can work on for now, 1) optimizing your cpap therapy and 2) accessing the resources at your college for accommodations. As a former university professor I know that faculty are obligated to follow recommendations made by the Student Disabilities office. The way it worked was that a student in my class would bring me a letter from the SD office stating exactly what accommodation they were entitled to (extra time on exam, translation services, or other accommodations) and I would make arrangements accordingly for that student.

The fact that you love learning is great, and will serve you well -- take advantage of the support here, and also at your college -- you deserve it!

Best wishes.

p.s. try not to hate your brain -- love it, treat it kindly, nourish it with healthy food and exercise, get the appropriate accommodations at school to maximize what it can do right now, and make sure it's well oxygenated at night with good cpap therapy. Let us know how you're doing.

[purple]

Depending on your financial/insurance situation, you might try to get a recording Pulse Oximeter and find out a bit more about your O2 at night.

[the_nap_ster]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

People here will give you great advice about your CPAP therapy, but in the meantime, let me offer advice from another direction.

I am a university professor, and I have had students bring me notes from doctors (often!) saying that they have medical conditions which may impact their performance. If you have a nice professor, we will figure out some way to make something work. Often people with sleep disorders do better on papers/essays than exams (because you can do them at your own pace, whenever you feel most awake), and so I often allow students to swap out exams for papers. Or I offer extra assignments to make up for bombed tests to people with medical challenges. Professors tend to be pretty accommodating with that doctor's note.

That said, you should ABSOLUTELY get in touch with your OSD department (Office of Students with Disabilities, or whatever it's called at your school). They have a million different kinds of accommodations for people with all kinds of conditions, and professors are required to give you those accommodations. This is a common thing, and I have at least five students registered with OSD every quarter. We're used to it, and it's no big deal.

Please, please talk to your prof and let them know what's going on. Most of us really want to help you succeed. And definitely get registered with OSD. It can make a huge difference.

[the_nap_ster]

As a former university professor...

How did I not know this? I knew I liked you.

[kaiasgram]

As a former university professor...

How did I not know this? I knew I liked you.

Aw, thanks napster.

[Captain_Midnight]

Hi Nemoeller, welcome to this forum, and thanks much for your service (from a Vet from a different era).

Before getting too concerned about potential disabilites, consider that it can take a while for the inflammation caused by sleep apnea (and the "focus" issues that it can cause) to subside.

Due to undiagnosed sleep apnea, by my mid-50s I had reached a point of progressive attention atrophy (for want of a better descriptive) at which I had to ask to be relieved of my responsibilities as an emergency response scientist. Then, after diagnosis and therapy, things got better, some right away, some over time (longer than a few months). Ultimately, I found that my abilities to focus, concentrate, multitask, recall, write and speak with clarity, and think with depth that I had not known somehow replaced the mental vacuum that was there. Others here share the same success story.

Consider optimizing your xpap therapy (use data from the machine, if possible, to insure that the pressure or pressure ranges suit you the best.) Generally, this means the lowest ahi that is reasonably and safely available. You can work with your DME if you like, and folks hereabouts can tell you more about what you can learn from the data your machine (hopefully) provides.

I'm not a doc, and I won't recommend that you take anything. That said, you might look into various nutritional supplements that counteract inflammation (fish oil and vitamin d3 come to mind, but talk this over with your health professional, don't take advice from an anonymous poster).

Finally, allow me to congratulate you on being a student, and working to succeed. I know that you ultimately will do just that.

.

[Captain_Midnight]

Oh, and one other very important possible xpap therapy issue to consider...leaks. Either from the sides of the mask or through your partially opened mouth. Leaks are not always apparent to the user, especially a new xpap patient; however, once identified, leaks are almost always solvable.

Also, when asked what might be the most important thing a new apneic patient might do, I typically tell them to maintain (or cultivate) a sense of humor. It helps to realize that there will be speed bumps on the therapy road, and that a sense of humor helps keep it all in a healthy perspective.

Hoping this is useful -- Capt Midnight


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[archangle]

I hate my brain! I have Mild tramatic brain injury, PTSD, "from the Iraq war, sleep APNEA. I try so hard to study for my Geology exam and got a sweet "F". I am on a CPAP, have been on it for a month now. Will I improve my grades, I love learning wish I could get my grades up. Will I get better is the question?

Welcome, nemoeller.

Untreated apnea will kill you. Slowly and silently, slowly and painfully, or suddenly with a heart attack or stroke. It will wear you down gradually like accelerated aging. It will rot your brain and everything else.

If apnea or its aftereffects are part of your grade problems, it will probably gradually improve, at least somewhat, with CPAP over time. Even if it doesn't improve, not treating it will probably make it worse.

Be careful to not blame everything on apnea and CPAP. Apneacs and doctors both tend to want to blame all your problems on your known medical conditions.

Stick around and learn how to monitor your own CPAP treatment. Sometimes, just putting on the machine isn't enough. You can learn a lot here about how to check your own results and fix some of your CPAP problems.